Religion and Governance in England’s Emerging Colonial Empire, 1601–1698

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. ‘A Just Government’—Empire, Religion, Chaplains and the Corporation

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 1-35Open Access

3. The Virginia Company and the Foundations of Religious Governance in English Commercial Expansion

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 37-70Open Access

4. The Plymouth Company and Massachusetts Bay Company (1622–1639): Establishing Theocratic Corporate Governance

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 71-111Open Access

5. Apostasy and Debauchery (1601–1660): Behaviour, Passive Evangelism and the East India and Levant Company Chaplains

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 113-159Open Access

6. The Massachusetts Bay Company and New England Company (1640–1684): Exportation, Revaluation and the Demise of Corporate Theocratic Governance

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 161-205Open Access

7. The East India Company (1661–1698): Territorial Acquisition and the ‘Amsterdam of Liberty’

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 207-248Open Access

8. Conclusion

   • Haig Z. Smith

   Pages 249-254Open Access

9. Back Matter

   Pages 255-292

   PDF

This open access book explores the role of religion in England's overseas companies and the formation of English governmental identity abroad in the seventeenth century. Drawing on research into the Virginia, East India, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New England and Levant Companies, it offers a comparative global assessment of the inextricable links between the formation of English overseas government and various models of religious governance across England's emerging colonial empire. While these approaches to governance varied from company to company, each sought to regulate the behaviour of their personnel, as well as the numerous communities and faiths which fell within their jurisdiction. This book provides a crucial reassessment of the seventeenth-century foundations of British imperial governance.

• Open access
• British Empire
• Colonialism
• Overseas trading companies
• Religious governance
• Imperial government

“This important study looks at the central place of religion in the contrasting governance of English overseas companies across the seventeenth century and across the globe, from Boston to Bombay. It identifies three models – pastoral, theocratic and ecumenical – of religious governance and it deepens our understanding of the complex relationship between trade, politics and religion in the development of these companies and the growth of empire.”

—Kenneth Fincham, University of Kent, UK

“With both conceptual precision and an expansive, global field-of-view, Smith reveals the distinctively corporate mechanisms that structured religious encounters in the early modern world and, in the process, places religious governance at the centre of our understanding of seventeenth century English expansion overseas.”

—William Pettigrew, Lancaster University, UK

“This detailed but wide-ranging study shows the important place that religion occupied in the management and reputation of early modern England's overseas companies, both in North America and Asia. It will be a valuable read for anyone wishing to learn about how England established a presence in the wider world.”

—Thomas Leng, University of Sheffield, UK

• Faculty of English Language & Literature, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

  Haig Z. Smith

Haig Z. Smith is a Research Associate on the ERC-funded TIDE project (Travel, Transculturality and Identity in Early Modern England, 1550-1700) at the University of Oxford, UK. He has previously published on a number of topics relating to religion and English overseas expansion in the early modern period.